Dale Moss | A few notes on the news

Schools are closing, students are being reassigned and employees are being pared from the payroll. Nowhere is the bite on the public more painful locally than in New Albany-Floyd County.

Anywhere, everywhere, seems likely to hurt, though. The economy is why, but not entirely why. The drumbeat only gets louder for lower taxes and lean government.

Take a look to New Albany-Floyd, to how that can play out. With less, schools and other services can't do as much. Even if we could agree on what is fat, there isn't nearly enough to trim to make the difference, only a difference.

Ridding waste - and expecting that to do the trick - is like Congress squeezing National Public Radio or like me buying Kroger peanut butter instead of Jif. It all adds up, but at best to a relative pittance.

The protests in New Albany-Floyd were reasonable. The key question, like usual, was one of priorities. Do convenient, nurturing schools matter more than teachers? The school board chose teachers. When we ask government to retreat, do not be surprised when it backs over us.

One side note: The school closing vote is the New Albany-Floyd board's most dramatic since it became an elected board. I'm wondering if members will pay a price.

The Clark County government likewise must cut, must reconcile its own gap between revenue and expenses. Its fix is similar to New Albany-Floyd's, yet also different.

Clark's problems go beyond what it spends to the basics of how it functions. Everyone is in charge, so no one is in charge. Duties are too spread, fiefdoms too commonplace. Trusted, authoritative leadership and cooperation are too infrequent.

The structure is more out of date than whatever is in the back of my refrigerator. Yet a statewide push stalls to take more steps toward a business-like approach to the people's business. Until reform is a priority, sustained efficiency cannot be.

It is easy to predict another round of Baron Hill vs. Mike Sodrel this fall for Congress. It is anything but easy to predict who wins on Nov. 2.

Hill, the incumbent Democrat, has the advantage if the economy continues to perk up and if his support for health-care legislation at least is fairly understood. Sodrel, the Republican former congressman, otherwise sits pretty. Voters are ornery and eager for a change.

Hill must like his chances or he would have taken a shot at the U.S. Senate seat being left by Evan Bayh. Sodrel must like his chances or he would not have entered the race, especially after taking a pounding by Hill in 2008.

I like the chances for another spirited campaign, but one bound again to be bloody.

My Indiana University basketball Hoosiers won 10 games this season, up from six in 2008-2009. I am disappointed.

I expected better, though not really good. I counted on more player improvement, less fallback on, "Hey, we're too young to do much." I wanted more toughness and more heart. I wanted players on scholarship to be able to make 7 of 10 free throws, not to dribble off their sneakers and to be hell-bent for the other side not to feast on dunks and layups. Maybe I want too much.

Like I want the best high school players - from Indiana, certainly, but nationally as well - to find it really, really tough to turn down an offer to play in Bloomington. The longer the program flounders, the fainter the memory in young minds of when it did not.

Haven House Services apparently will continue in Jeffersonville to provide shelter to those otherwise out of options. Four or five dozen people, sometimes more, nightly fit that bill.

To them, Haven House director Barbara Anderson cannot say no. She spent money on their care that the Internal Revenue Service was due as payroll taxes for Haven House staff. That was a mistake, though from the heart.

From now on, nonetheless, the shelter must play by the rules and I feel sure it will. Other agencies talk of providing similar services. If they materialize, the help is welcome and long overdue.

Finally, I continue to believe in Indiana's switch to class tournaments for its storied high school basketball. The new way is far from perfect, I will agree. So was the one-winner version, however. The odds for small schools had gotten longer and longer - small schools such as Austin High. It won a girls' title this year, euphoria the community would not otherwise have felt.

Dale Moss' column appears on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at (812) 949-4026 or dmoss@courier-journal.com. Comment on this column, and read his blog and previous columns, at www.courier-journal.com/moss.

Louisville, Kentucky • Southern Indiana

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Dale Moss | A few notes on the news

Schools are closing, students are being reassigned and employees are being pared from the payroll. Nowhere is the bite on the public more painful locally than in New Albany-Floyd County.